I have two suggestions. One is to be able to appraise the quality or value of an item someone else is wearing by 'look X on Y'. This will encourage people to seek better (and more pricey) tailors. The other is to encourage richer folks with better clothes to laugh at others. Also to stop PCs with terrible skill from metagaming and presenting their stuff as of a better skill/stat combo.

The second is to add a %quality pronoun to -all- artistry products, very particularly including tattoos which can't codedly be looked at or appraised for monetary value.

If you really want to encourage people to pay attention to this stuff, add it to the shortdescs. If the overall value of a character's outfit is particularly high or low, they can look raggedy, poorly/well/sharply-dressed, etc.

Someone also suggested charisma bonuses for -really- well-made clothing which I agree with.

Could we have the opposite? For poorly-made clothes, there'll be negative 'bonus' to Charisma?

By Diani at Jun 24, 2017 6:27 PM

I agree with Kuzco, having a %quality in the describe for clothes/tattoos/art would completely settle my own concerns about having to make what are in some cases overly descriptive articles of clothing just to appropriately reflect a character's skill in the items final 'value'. It seems like a simple fix.

I believe someone else suggested doing %material as well to keep that from being obfuscated (fur coats made out of Thrift shop cotton or what have you).

By Crooknose at Jun 24, 2017 6:38 PM

If I understand it right the %quality would be an adjective determined by the skill of the artist when they finalize the item?

On clothing, would it need to be in wear and description or just description?

Will the value be fixed based on the skill of the artist when the item was created or would it be possible to "improve" the %quality when working on an item later on?

What about the value of the item? I recall someone mentioning that they would prefer it if word count and/or coverage were not a factor in determining value?

I'm game for any of this stuff, as long as it doesn't appear in the @worn on an item. Having stuff mandatorily interrupted by a descriptive of the quality when you look at someone is just going to be unweildly for people that wear multiple items together, and make me sad whenever I look at someone. Make it something that you can check out when you look at an item on a player, and its fine.

Something like... when you it shows the description of the item, in addition to a descriptive sentence about the quality on a separate line.

This bright red t-shirt has a smiley face screen printed on the front of it in yellow and black ink.

I'm game for any of this stuff, as long as it doesn't appear in the @worn on an item. Having stuff mandatorily interrupted by a descriptive of the quality when you look at someone is just going to be unweildly for people that wear multiple items together, and make me sad whenever I look at someone. Make it something that you can check out when you look at an item on a player, and its fine.

Something like... when you "look at t-shirt on player" it shows the description of the item, in addition to a descriptive sentence about the quality on a separate line.

This bright red t-shirt has a smiley face screen printed on the front of it in yellow and black ink.

I'm open to either method. My main concern as the player of a tailor character is showing my skill level in a definite, concrete way on the items I produce. If that's listed on the @describe so that when you "look shoes on Joe" you see something like what ManyWaters is saying, "This item is of poor quality" or "This item is of expert quality" or whatever, that's fine by me.

It might be tricky to find the right article to look at on someone, though. Additionally, would non-player-made clothing simply not bear this descriptor? Like, you'd expect immy clothes to be of poor quality, but would the other store-sold items in the game be refactored in this manner?

We could also consider maybe an averaged clothing quality that shows up in the glance information, based on the mean clothing level the player has on, a la:

X is holding nothing.

X is in excellent condition.

X's clothing is of mediocre quality.

All of this is one more thing for corporate characters to shame each other over, and I think that's amazing. I always love when corpies check their rolex or play with their prog 11 for no reason, or rather simply for the purpose of showing each other up. To me it's a major part of the corporate theme.

Also, someone brought up the idea of player-made clothing providing a charisma bump, and Cerberus said maybe just the top 4 levels of artistry. I just don't want that idea to get lost.

By Crooknose at Jun 25, 2017 4:38 AM

I agree with Manywaters. When i look at a character, i see that as my character glancing over their appearance and maybe studying their features. If i want to really look at a piece of clothing i look at the item on them. So, the @describe is where the quality descriptor should go if there's going to be one and not in the @worn.

What i wouldn't want to see is when i don my torn up fishnet microdress that is stylish in Red but not topside and it has some descriptor calling it elegant or high-fashion just because the tailor is awesome.

What would be cool - to me - is to have a set of descriptors that open up to the player during the item creation process that allows them to set the items quality themselves dependent on their skill level. A high level tailor or artist isn't going to create a masterpiece every time they crank up their sewing machine. Sometimes they might just want to sew some shit together and make it look hot. They could have access to all of the descriptors up to their level in artistry at their disposal. You could even make a success or failure rate due to the higher level of the descriptor being used. Want to make that ripped up blue jean greaser look for one kay? Not a problem. Want to create that diamond weave red-carpet head turning 100 kay gown? Better have those stats up or a lot of extra flash for the material you -might- screw up. This would also give those focusing on tailoring within the artistry skillset an advantage over those who don't. (even though we don't know how that's going to work, obviously.)

I don't really have an opinion on the charisma stat boost except that it shouldn't be automatic. Maybe a critical chance? I think it should have some sort of failure rate if its implemented at all. Maybe dependent on material?

By fleurtygirl at Jun 25, 2017 7:12 AM

I'm rethinking my last post now. i'm sorry. I'm tired. Having customizable or semi-customizable descriptors , basically giving clothing a hidden @shortdesc that can be seen when examined, although awesome to me, still doesn't satisfy the need for a more precise gauge of quality does it? The descriptors still need a more concrete quality value attached to them. Maybe this is where stat boosts (if they happen) come in or maybe there's a way to expand the original idea to incorporate that since my tired pea brain doesn't work this morning.

By fleurtygirl at Jun 25, 2017 7:47 AM

I'm totally not for the shortdesc of items being messed with. For like a whole pile of reasons. God no. Leave shortdescs alone please guys mother of god please.

My first issue with adding mandatory add-ons to clothing shortdescs is how it's going to limit the flexibility of tailoring adjectives in descriptions, and potentially make the shortdescs of clothing cumbersome and annoying in length.

For example. Considering textiles. It's limiting already in the sense that there are only a few generic 'fibers' we can buy in 'rolls' and it's assumed that all other elements are acquired in the same manner that our characters buy toilet paper. It's ambient in how it gets into the garment.

There are a lot of things which "cotton" could be made into. Denim for example. Synthetic textiles typically contain a blend of fibers, or can be treated in a specific way and the result feels and looks different, yet it's the same base elements. Velvet. Suede. Twill. Canvas. Burlap. Polyesters. Neoprene. Spandex. Latex. Lycra. Mesh. Rubber.

The word used to describe the look and feel of the fibre makes a difference in how the item is viewed on a quick glance. It's not possible to have every material as an option in the game as a coded choice, so some ambient choice in the 'type' of fabric based on the 'base' material has always been implied.

If I am wearing "a shoddy burlap shirt" It's way more obvious what I'm trying to convey over "a shoddy cotton shirt." And it doesn't make much sense if you try to say "a shoddy cotton shirt made of burlap" And what if my tailoring skill is high and I'm TRYING to make a shoddy shirt? Then is it going to say "A masterfully tailored shoddy cotton shirt"? That's also a problem.

Sometimes the selection of material is based on layer-ability. If you have a leather g-string. Well then you can't wear a cotton skirt over it can you? Even though that's a little silly since it's a g-string and a skirt is just flapping around on top of it, code does not allow for that freedom of definition. So a tailor might elect to design the g-string with cotton, and define the cotton in the description like "it's lined with cotton and the straps are cotton but the crotch is leather." You still wouldn't call it "a cotton thong with a leather crotch"

Furthermore, if we start adding %quality to the shortdesc, plus %material, the titles of these items are going to get SO long, limiting the amount of descriptive adjectives a tailor might place before that items name becomes a run-on sentence list instead of a description. Or worse, forcing tailors to rein in the execution of an idea in favor of accommodating a fixed template.

That.. and honestly to me it feels silly that I can pick out the exact materials in your clothes as well as how good they are made just as you walk buy.

Maybe it's the OCD in me but I feel like that's just super overwhelming and TMI for a shortdesc.

IRL I don't fucking know that your shirt is silk or some other fake-silk almost silk but not actually. I don't know if your stitches are masterful. There is only yeah that looks cheap it's already falling apart, or no that seems pretty good. It seems shiny and silky. I certainly can't "grade" how awesome the thing is.

TLDR: No for the love of god leave the shortdescs alone that's too much. I don't need to see all that info. Nor do I want to see tailored item descriptions getting boxed into narrow, less creative templates.

Of the proposed options so far, there are two that seem the most viable from my viewpoint.

Adding something to the @inspect commanding as has been suggested. That's viable to assess if a piece of clothing is shit, without cutting flexibility.

force a %quality and %material to be included the @worn and @description much in the same way that color is. At least then a tailor has some flexibility working those into the finished piece.

By Wildgiller at Jun 25, 2017 8:23 AM

Amendment. Re-reading the posts above I think that the @description is the best place for the extra descriptors too. Not @worn.

Because IMHO you cannot tell that the titty tape on that hookers boobs is made of vinyl with adhesive glue on the back and is of good-quality.

By Wildgiller at Jun 25, 2017 8:30 AM

@Wildgiller: I wasn't suggesting adding pronouns to shortdescs, GOD NO. That would suck. Just some of the more extended strings like @worn or (as it seems to be the preferred option) @describe.

Oh. Well. Jesus. Ignore the rant then, somewhere along the line I thought shortdescs were being tossed around as an option and I recoiled in horror -_-

@describe though seems like a legit resolution. That's kind of what I like to do now, when I want to expand on the nitty gritty.

Like "this isn't functional" "this has a lot of leather in it and other stuff too" "this goes over your face but it's floppy and cheap so don't think it's going to disguise you" "this is the kind of trash only mixers would wear and corpies would look like an asshat trying to pull this off" etc..

@describe slot to me is a storehouse for all those things you'd notice if you were carefully looking something over in consideration. Makes total sense to tag %material and %quality markers in there.

By Wildgiller at Jun 25, 2017 1:39 PM

I suggested %material be required in @worn, like %color is now. This would prevent (or shame) a whole mess of people making stuff out of cheap material (or jewelry, etc).

The implementation would be 'easy' but the rollout would be difficult. Basically every piece of tailored clothing would have to be remade, unless it was just required going forward. Same goes for %quality, I think it's a good idea. But the quality would need to be assigned before @finish, so it can be added correctly to the descriptor or the possible values of %quality are well published (help tailoring) and be an adverb to work universally.

@worn shirt is "%N wears a %quality made %color shirt made of %material."

If an additional line of quality was added to the @describe about the quality, it would be much easier to roll out and not be unwieldy as far as @worn descriptions go.

By ExMachinae at Jun 25, 2017 2:22 PM

I can dig it.

I agree with Wildgiller's concern re: %material being in the @worn, in the sense that there are too many material permutations based on the basics, especially variants on cotton, leather, vinyl, etc.

Typically people are keen to point out the more expensive materials anyway (if you make an Egyptian cotton dress, a linen suit, a diamondweave scarf, you're going to let people know about it). I would hope people aren't trying to pass off cotton as lace/vinyl/more appropriate materials but they no doubt do.

Still, my whole thing isn't necessarily to play rules police. People should know they're basically cheating if they do that. My whole thing is, let's get the quality coded in somewhere (seems like people are digging the @describe) so that it's more evident and less open to vagueness.

I do like the idea of being able to choose any quality up to your "best" to use. That way as a tailor you could, for instance, make lesser quality clothes for lesser prices and higher quality clothes for higher prices, without disrupting your own market. If someone wants your top shelf quality they can pay that extra mile.

By Crooknose at Jun 25, 2017 6:24 PM

Please do not make @material appear in the @worn. There are too few fabric types for that.

That's an awesome summary, Grey0, except I'm not sure adding a charisma penalty to the lowest ranks would do much. In my experience it doesn't take very long at all to get out of the lowest tiers in terms of UE expenditure, so it's not much or a barrier. Maybe anything less than skilled?

By Crooknose at Jun 26, 2017 6:02 AM

I am also not sure if the quality descriptor can really be the same as the skill descriptor all the time. I don't know all the skill descriptors but at least a few sound bad as quality descriptors. For example: "This item is of useless quality." or "This item is of accomplished quality." It also does not take into account any relevant stats (though I am not sure if they apply here). Additionally, I find that the skill descriptors are quite vague and sometimes it is hard to tell which is better (for those of us who have not even seen them all let alone memorized them in order).

If the idea is for these quality descriptors enable everyone to clearly determine which items are better than others we will need to either have an unambiguous ladder of quality descriptors or be willing to document which is better and which is worse. I do not think that the skill descriptors are unambiguous and I doubt that the staff will want to publish the ladder just because we are using it for this new purpose.

I maybe missed some of the discussion, but is there currently a big problem with low-skill tailors pumping out exquisitely tailored suits and making loads of money? It's a theoretical issue, but it seems like one you'd get whapped for abusing.

Most of what makes a decent tailor is the ability to write and be creative/themely, and the expectation/trust is that players who go into that role aren't going to overreach and will drop UE on the skills/stats associated to back that up even if they don't strictly have to. Does it really need a bunch of code behind it?

@Vera: That's not my personal motivation for wanting the quality added to the @describe, I'm more concerned about being able to show that tailored items are of a certain quality even if they're not verbose. I don't want to go into the nitty-gritty of it for non-tailors but when you're making an outfit, not ever piece needs to be ten lines long. In fact, it's sort of counter productive when they are. Rather, just like your @describe me and your @nakeds, you choose to emphasize some things and leave others vague in order to create an effect that yes, tells you what you're looking at, but is also aesthetically pleasing and manageable (who's going to take the time to read a novel of an outfit?)

However, I will say this: I haven't seen many characters choose to 'dabble' in chemistry, decking, and the like, but a lot of players tend to dabble in artistry because they might want to make some custom threads/paintings/etc. Personally I feel like, just in real life, most of us are not going to make our own clothes unless we really know what we're doing. And yet characters do make their own clothes all the time. That's not what this thread is about, but Kuzco did mention it at one point and I tend to agree. Being able to look at someone's clothes/appearance/accessories and judge them is part of being a corpie, and I think this will help with that.

By Crooknose at Jun 26, 2017 11:05 AM

The issue is mostly people not using tailors and doing the work themselves because they technically can do so. Without good skill, they can still make beautiful appearing clothing.

I'm not going to do away with calculating the value based in part on the amount of content you entered. A more detailed item should be worth more.

Your skill is already a factor in the value.

Adding in a factor based on the quality you determine is a good idea. Any quality scale would be done with appropriate adjectives or phrases. Determining apparent quality would need to be based on your skills and stats. We generally reserve such information for the 'inspect' command too, instead of simply 'look'. Even old, finalized, items would pick up a quality, as we have scores recorded from when it was finalized. Yes, you won't get to chose to make something you've already made a 'lesser quality' item than your skill, but at least all old items will have a quality.

Removing the number of locations covered as a factor might be an appropriate idea. A more appropriate idea might be making shitty tailors consume more of their material covering fewer locations. Then they must go to a tailor or raise their skill+backing stat appropriately.

I am undecided if we should have 'glance' potentially spending your luck as it determines the apparent value of an individual's wardrobe using your skills and stats.

@Vera You didn't mention description length, I did. I was reiterating my own reasons for wanting to see changes. I don't want this to become about punishing people who are misrepresenting their skill level, that might be part of the conversation but that's not the main point that we're working towards.

By Crooknose at Jun 26, 2017 4:20 PM

I'd rather description length not be tied to value because it discourages people from making snappy, tight descriptions that don't add up to a character taking up a page and a half when you look at them and all their over-detailed clothes and tattoos. I'd much rather a punchy and short description that gets to the point than a lot of rambling just because it adds 3000 chyen to the value of the item or something.

That's about the only stake I have in all this, but more factors to encourage compact and thoughtful writing is important all around, in my opinion.